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Myriad Musings of an Urban Nomad |
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by Bhaskaranand Jha Bhaskar |
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Into the Migrant City by Nabina Das,
Her poetry is a beautiful tapestry of thoughts where she drips some reflective drops of her concerns and anxieties towards the plight, outside and inside –
The poet is a modern nomad. She travels far and wide and broadens the horizon of her experience, enhancing overall awareness. Migrations at the time of partitions of the country seem to have wounded her soul and the pain she feels as such reminds of the troubled times spent by the people affected by the devastations. She gives a heart wrenching description of the ‘baby face’
She is a poetess with milk of human kindness. Her love for the animals and birds is pervasive throughout her poetry. The twittering soul, caged in her flutters and poetry gets wings, and she soars aloft in the vast firmament of life. Her love for birds, animals and insects is evident from her poems. ‘Crow’, ‘owl’, ’hens’, ‘china’, ‘sparrows’, ’ducks’, ’pigeon’, ‘yak’, ‘fish’, ‘rooster’ are some examples frequently used in the poems. She is pained to see the cold attitude of the people towards the mute living beings like sea gulls-
The word-pictures she draws in her poetry evoke feelings of disgusts at the bloodshed stooped to in contemporary times. Her poem ‘Redness’ is a metaphorical expression of her take on with such sinister acts-
And hence she is not able to restrain herself from making caustic remarks on their attitude as they have lost their ‘ tongues’, ‘attitude piled under the redness of shame/peripheral to storms, deaths, news of constant ruse.’ With the realization of this fact, she remarks intellectually-
She is a conscious poet of tours and travels. She harbors in her heart ‘a secret wish’ to ‘find home’ for herself. Measuring length and breadth of the world is not the sole objective of the subjective self and this realization is evident in her poems. With the fulfillment of what she wants to enjoy in the world, she finally intends to get back to her own destination. At first she wants ‘to walk, stare at the local train’s segmented grace, the river mist. However, her sole desire is to find a restive place – home. Hence, she is ‘dreaming the shadow of a home.’ She expresses-
The poet’s sense of historical perspective on major phenomena in the world is outstandingly reflected with profuse emotions. The gory chapters of history traumatize the poet to such an extent that she comes up with beautiful poems to purge her emotions through the process of catharsis. Some poems reveal this true sense of hers. A very touching description of a man from ‘rag wearing villages of Bengal’ is a testimony to this fact-
In another poem ‘Sem(a)ntics’ she defines history in a romantic way through a beautiful metaphor –
Further, she flutters the wings of her consciousness and soars aloft. We can find wonderful expression of her ecstatic soul here-
Some of her poems deal with the themes of love, lust and desire that arrest our attention with the appealing sensuousness presented through scintillating metaphors and imagery. Consummation of love, separation in love, lovemaking , dumping, divine love,, romantic – all aspects of love have been beautifully portrayed in her poems but in a different way. She makes a caustic remark at one place-
In her poems, she also makes caustic remarks at the lasciviousness of men who keep staring at girls’ or women’s ‘bulbous yet soft’ ‘orbs held firm by tight green bodices’ through realistic imagery. She further remarks-
She very realistically portrays ‘time of lust’-
However, we find in her poetry a fantastic glorification of divine love that she professes to her beloved compared as Krishna-
Her poetry is a beacon of light, love, hope, faith, revolt, dreams, peace. Paying tribute to Sukanta Bhattacharya, a great poet known for his ‘tone of rebellion and social change’, she expresses her fondness of his poetry as his poetry is ‘full of seeds that planted hope, to never die or with’ and she regards poetry ‘ a mail runner for our faith to brim over’.
Metaphoric expressions of sensuousness and sensuality add evocative power to her poetry. The intense and passionate passages of her life open up with great vivacity in her poetry, of ‘lust words ’like ‘a scythe around the neck of our desires’. Like Kamala Das, she reveals with no inhibition’ the silken route to course through our deposited nights’. With ‘dusks and sweats of shredded loves’, she goes on-
Her poetry is soaked in Indianness- Indian ethos and values. Despite being nomadic in life styles, she makes oft-occurring references to rites and rituals, spirituality and other cultural aspects of life in our country. Her socio-cultural awareness is well reflected in her poems dealing with homage for forefathers, the ancestors or theme of salvation, or with Buddhists’ ways of life, or delineating the astounding natural beauty of the rural landscape. She innocently and openly remarks-
Her keen observation of the countryside ways of life, beliefs can be observed in the following lines that present the rural landscape-
In her poetry we also find the preponderance of spiritual elements. She not only speaks for women’s freedom but also talks about salvation of soul, and over all development of ‘Buddha’s children’. She believes in ‘Streams are known to be clean’, and ‘sparkling source of unanimity’. She has unflinching faith in the eternal source of energy-
Nabina Das’s poems as Into the Migrant City, are droplets of thoughts, flowing subtly, on myriads of issues of life and the world around- the life she has lived and the world she is living in. Candid expression, honest confession, searing satire, multitudes of views on life, philosophy, social attitude, migration, basics of roots, sympathy for the poor, love for the animal world and protests against the social set- ups, intense cerebration over the human existence are the hallmarks of her poetry. Like a true feminist she raises some issues, national and international, of feminism, some issues of serious concern. Some of her poems are a veiled protest. (An abridged version of this review was published in Asian Signature, Second Volume, 2015) |
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10-Oct-2015 | ||
More by : Bhaskaranand Jha Bhaskar | ||
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